Although updates are significant for any crypto network, things get clearly a lot more significant when we talk about them on Bitcoin. Bitcoin, the first crypto often called the premier crypto had its long-anticipated upgrade, Taproot finally activated.
Taproot activated at block 709,632 on the Bitcoin network, allowing developers to integrate new features. These new features are expected to improve privacy, scalability, and security on the network.
The upgrade locked in back in June after 90% of the miners have ‘shown’ their support to the upgrade. Through this programmed waiting period between lock-in and activation, node operators and miners have sufficient time to upgrade their systems. In fact, all the node operators on the Bitcoin Network have upgraded to Bitcoin Core 21.1 that contains merged code for Taproot.
Taproot is a compilation of multiple technical innovations throughout Bitcoin’s history. Greg Maxwell had proposed this in 2018. Following that, Pieter Wuille, Tim Ruffing, A.J. Townes, and Jonas Nick have written the Taproot upgrade which got merged into Bitcoin Core.
Although a lot of Bitcoin nodes showed support for the upgrade, a lot of them still haven’t upgraded to the latest version yet. What this means is they cannot enforce the new rules of Taproot. However, the network will still run just fine.
There is a caveat about it. Miners who haven’t upgraded to the new software can’t successfully mine on the network and will also miss on earning any new block rewards. However, developers have done a lot, ensuring that miners get the adequate opportunity in order to get up to speed. In fact, this is the reason why after ‘lock in’ of Taproot, there was a five-month delay before activation.
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